The Mathematics of Star Trek Data Transmission Michael A. Karls Ball State University.

The Mathematics of Star Trek

Data TransmissionMichael A. Karls

Ball State University

Topics

Binary Codes ASCII Error Correction Parity Check-Sums Hamming Codes Binary Linear Codes Data Compression

M. A. Karls, Ball State University

Binary Codes A code is a group of symbols that represent

information together with a set of rules for interpreting the symbols.

The process of turning a message into code form is called encoding. The reverse process is called decoding.

A binary code is a coding scheme that uses two symbols, usually 0 or 1.

Mathematically, binary codes represent numbers in base 2.

For example, 1011 would represent the number 1 x 20 +1 x 21 + 0 x 22 + 1 x 23 = 1+2+0+8 = 11.


ASCII

One example of a binary code is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII).

This code is used by computers to turn letters, numbers, and other characters into strings (lists) of binary digits or bits.

When a key is pressed, a computer will interpret the corresponding symbol as a string of bits unique to that symbol.


ASCII (cont.)

Here are the ASCII bit strings for the capital letters in our alphabet:

Letter ASCII Letter ASCII

A 0100 0001 N 0100 1110

B 0100 0010 O 0100 1111

C 0100 0011 P 0101 0000

D 0100 0100 Q 0101 0001

E 0100 0101 R 0101 0010

F 0100 0110 S 0101 0011

G 0100 0111 T 0101 0100

H 0100 1000 U 0101 0101

I 0100 1001 V 0101 0110

J 0100 1010 W 0101 0111

K 0100 1011 X 0101 1000

L 0100 1100 Y 0101 1001

M 0100 1101 Z 0101 1010


ASCII (cont.)

Thus, in binary, using ASCII, the text “MR SPOCK” would be encoded as:

0100 1101 0101 0010 0101 0011 0101 0000 0100 1111 0100 0011 0100 1011

HW: What would be the decimal equivalent of this bit string?


Error Correction When data is transmitted, it

is important to make sure that errors are corrected!

This is done all the time by computers, fax machines, cell phones, CD players, iPods, satellites, etc.

In the Star Trek universe, this would be especially important for the transporter to work correctly!


Error Correction (cont.) We use error correction in languages such as English! For example, consider the phrase: “Bean me up Scotty!” Most likely, there has been an error in transmission,

which can be corrected by looking at the extra information in the sentence.

The word “bean” is most likely “beam”. Other possibilities: bear, been, lean, which don’t really

make sense. Language such as English have redundancy (extra

information) built into them so that we can infer the correct message, even if the message may have been received incorrectly!


Error Correction (cont.) Over the past 40 years,

mathematicians and engineers have developed sophisticated schemes to build redundancy into binary strings to correct errors in transmission!

One example can be illustrated with Venn diagrams!

Venn diagrams are illustrations used in the branch of mathematics known as set theory.

They are used to show the mathematical or logical relationship between different groups of things (sets). Claude Shannon (1916-2001)

“Father of Information Theory”


Error Correction (cont.)

Suppose we wish to send the message: 1001.

Using the Venn diagram at the right, we can append three bits to our message to help catch errors in transmission!

VI

II

III IV

VI

VII

A B

C



The message bits 1001 are placed in regions I, II, III, and IV, respectively.

For regions V, VI, and VII, choose either a 0 or a 1 to make the total number of 1’s in a circle even!

V1

0

0 1

VI

VII

A B

C



Thus, we place a 1 in region V, a 0 in region VI, and a 1 in region VII.

Thus, the message 1001 is encoded as 1001101.

11

0

0 1

0

1

A B

C


Error Correction (cont.) Suppose the message 1001101 is

received as 0001101, so there is an error in the first bit.

To check for (and correct) this error, we use the Venn diagram!

Put the bits of the message 0001101 into regions I - VII in order.

Notice that in circle A there is an odd number of 1’s. (We say that the parity of circle A is odd.)

The same is true for circle B. This means that there has been an

error in transmission, since we sent a message for which each circle had even parity!

10

0

0 1

0

1

A B

C


Error Correction (cont.) To correct the error, we

need to make the parity of all three circles even.

Since circle C has an even number of 1’s, we leave it alone.

It follows that the error is located in the portion of the diagram outside of circle C, i.e. in region V, I, or VI.

Switching a 1 to a 0 or vice-versa, one region at a time, we find that the error is in region I!

10

0

0 1

0

1

A B

C



1

1

0

A

C

B

0 0

00 1

1

1

A

C

B

1 0

00

1

1

0

A

C

B

1 1

00

A has even parityB has odd parity

A has even parityB has even parity

A has odd parityB has even parity


Error Correction (cont.) Thus, the correct message

is: 1001101! This scheme allows the

encoding of the 16 possible 4-bit strings!

Any single bit error will be detected and corrected.

Note that if there are two or more errors this method may not detect the error or yield the correct message! (We’ll see why later!)

11

0

0 1

0

1

A B

C


Parity-Check Sums In practice, binary messages are made up of

strings that are longer than four digits (for example, MR SPOCK in ASCII).

We now look at a mathematical method to encode binary strings that is equivalent to the Venn diagram method and can be applied to longer strings!

Given any binary string of length four, a1a2a3a4, we wish append three check digits so that any single error in any of the seven positions can be corrected.


Parity-Check Sums (cont.)

We choose the check digits as follows:• c1 = 0 if a1+a2+a3 is even.

• c1 = 1 if a1+a2+a3 is odd.

• c2 = 0 if a1+a2+a4 is even.

• c2 = 1 if a1+a2+a4 is odd.

• c3 = 0 if a2+a3+a4 is even.

• c3 = 1 if a2+a3+a4 is odd.

These sums are called parity-check sums!



As an example, for a1a2a3a4 = 1001, we find that:

c1 = 1, since a1+a2+a3 = 1+0+0 is odd.

c2 = 0, since a1+a2+a4 = 1+0+1 is even.

c3 = 1, since a2+a3+a4 = 0+0+1 is odd. Thus 1001 is encoded as 1001101, just

as with the Venn diagram method!


Parity-Check Sums (cont.) Try this scheme with the message 1000! Solution: 1000110 Suppose that the message u = 1000110 is received

as v = 1010110 (so there is an error in position 3). To decode the message v, we compare v with the 16

possible messages that could have been sent. For this comparison, we define the distance between

strings of equal length to be the number of positions in which the strings differ.

Thus, the distance between v = 1010110 and w = 0001011 would be 5.



Here are the distances between message v and all possible code words:

v 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110

code word 0000 000 0001 011 0010 111 0100 101 1000 110 1100 011 1010 001 1001 101

distance 4 5 2 5 1 4 3 4

v 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110 1010 110

code word 0110 010 0101 110 0011 100 1110 100 1101 000 1011 010 0111 001 1111 111

distance 3 4 3 2 5 2 6 3


Parity-Check Sums (cont.) Comparing our message v = 1010110 to the possible

code words, we find that the minimum distance is 1, for code word 1000110.

For all other code words, the distance is greater than or equal to 2.

Therefore, we decode v as u = 1000110. This method is known as nearest-neighbor decoding. Note that this method will only correct an error in one

position. (We’ll see why later!) If there is more than one possibility for the decoded

message, we don’t decode.


Binary Linear Codes The error correcting scheme

we just saw is a special case of a Hamming code.

These codes were first proposed in 1948 by Richard Hamming (1915-1998), a mathematician working at Bell Laboratories.

Hamming was frustrated with losing a week’s worth of work due to an error that a computer could detect, but not correct.


Binary Linear Codes (cont.)

A binary linear code consists of words composed of 0’s and 1’s and is obtained from all possible k-tuple messages by using parity-check sums to append check digits to the messages.

The resulting strings are called code words. Generic code word: a1a2…an, where a1a2…ak

is the message part and ak+1ak+2…an is the check digit part.


Binary Linear Codes (cont.) Given a binary linear code, two natural questions to ask

are:1. How can we tell if it will correct errors?2. How many errors will it detect? To answer these questions, we need the idea of the

weight of a code. The weight, denoted t, of a binary linear code is the

minimum number of 1’s that occur among all nonzero code words of that code.

For example, the weight of the code in the examples above is t = 3.


Binary Linear Codes (cont.) If the weight t is odd, the code will correct any (t-1)/2 or

fewer errors. If the weight t is even, the code will correct any (t-2)/2 or

fewer errors. If we just want to detect any errors, a code of weight t will

detect any t-1 or fewer errors. Thus, our binary linear code of weight 3 can correct (3-

1)/2 = 1 error or detect 3-1 = 2 errors. Note that we need to decide in advance if we want to

correct or detect errors! For correcting, we apply the nearest neighbor method. For detecting, if we get an error, we ask for the message

to be re-sent.


Binary Linear Codes (cont.) The key to the error correcting schemes in

binary linear codes is that the set of possible code words differ from each other in t positions, where t is the weight of the code.

Thus, as many as t-1 errors in a code word can be detected, as any valid code word will differ from another in t positions!

It t is odd, say t = 3, then a code word with an error in one position will differ from the correct code word in one position and differ from all other code words by at least two positions.


Data Compression Binary linear codes are fixed-length

codes, since each word in the code is represented by the same number of digits.

The Morse Code, developed for the telegraph in the 1850’s by Samuel Morse is an example of a variable-length code in which the number of symbols for a word may vary.

Morse code is an example of data compression.

One great example of where data compression is used the MP3 format for compressing music files!

For the Star Trek universe, data compression would be useful for encoding information for the transporter!

Letter Morse Letter Morse

A . _ N _.

B _... O _ _ _

C _._. P ._ _ .

D _.. Q _ _._

E . R ._.

F .._. S …

G _ _. T _

H …. U .._

I .. V …_

J ._ _ _ W ._ _

K _._ X _.._

L ._.. Y _._ _

M _ _ Z _ _..


Data Compression (cont.) Data compression is the

process of encoding data so that the most frequently occurring data are represented by the fewest symbols.

Comparing the Morse code symbols to a relative frequency chart for the letters in the English language, we find that the letters that occur the most have shorter Morse code symbols!

Letter Percentage Letter Percentage

A 8.2 N 6.7

B 1.5 O 7.5

C 2.8 P 1.9

D 4.3 Q 0.1

E 12.7 R 6

F 2.2 S 6.3

G 2 T 9.1

H 6.1 U 2.8

I 7 V 1

J 0.2 W 2.4

K 0.8 X 0.2

L 4 Y 2

M 2.4 Z 0.1

Percentage of letters out of a sample of 100,362 alphabetic characters taken from newspapers and novels.


Data Compression (cont.)

As an illustration of data compression, let’s use the idea of gene sequences.

Biologists are able to describe genes by specifying sequences composed of the four letters A, T, G, and C, which stand for the four nucleotides adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, respectively.

Suppose we wish to encode the sequence AAACAGTAAC.


Data Compression (cont.) One way is to use the (fixed-length) code: A00, C01,

T10, and G11. Then AAACAGTAAC is encoded as: 00000001001110000001. From experience, biologists know that the frequency of

occurrence from most frequent to least frequent is A, C, T, G. Thus, it would more efficient to choose the following binary

code: A0, C10, T110, and G111. With this new code, AAACAGTAAC is encoded as:

0001001111100010. Notice that this new binary code word has 16 letters versus 20

letters for the fixed-length code, a decrease of 20%. This new code is an example of data compression!


Data Compression (cont.) Suppose we wish to decode a sequence encoded with

the new data compression scheme, such as 0001001111100010.

Looking at groups of three digits at a time, we can decode this message!

Since 0 only occurs at the end of a code word, and the codes words that end in 0 are 0, 10, and 110, we can put a mark after every 0, as this will be the end of a code word.

The only time a sequence of 111 occurs is for the code word 111, so we can put a mark after every triple of 1’s.

Thus, we have: 0,0,0,10,0,111,110,0,0,10, which is AAACAGTAAC.


References The Code Book, by Simon Singh, 1999. For All Practical Purposes (5th ed.), COMAP, 2000. St. Andrews' University History of Mathematics:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/index.html

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Transporter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram


The Mathematics of Star Trek Data Transmission Michael A. Karls Ball State University.

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